As mankind continues to develop around the world, the demand for energy rises. Most energy used to power machines and generate electricity is derived from fossil fuels, such as coal, natural gas or oil. These supplies are limited, and the burning of such fuels may causes atmospheric pollution and also leads to the production of Carbon Dioxide, which is suspected to accelerate the greenhouse effect and lead to global warming. Some alternate approaches to produce energy include the harnessing of nuclear energy, wind, moving water (hydro power), geothermal energy or solar energy. However, each of these alternate energy approaches has drawbacks. Nuclear power requires a huge capital investment, while safety and waste disposal are concerns. Wind power is effective, but the turbines employed to harness it require a windy site, and takes up large footprints of land. Hydro power requires the construction of large, potentially environmentally harmful dams and, more importantly, large volumes of flowing water. Geothermal, likewise, requires a source of such energy that is relatively near the surface—a characteristic not common to a large portion of the Earth—and has the potential to disrupt the balance of forces that exist inside the Earth's crust. Solar, the cleanest, and most available form of energy requires a relatively sunny locale (common in many places, particularly remote deserts), but the generation of electricity from solar energy is relatively inefficient. Expensive photovoltaic cells must be deployed in large arrays to generate a meaningful quantity of electricity. Systems that use concentrating mirrors to generate steam are also inefficient, and require large footprints to deploy an array of focusing mirrors. These facilities are unsuitable for smaller generation systems.
Particularly in the developing world, and anywhere that is too remote to receive power transmission, power to run pumps, lights and essential services must be derived from smaller scale generators. Solar is not always suitable for this task, due to the size and expense of the required photovoltaic array. Instead it is highly desirable to provide a more efficient and compact system for generating predetermined quantities of electricity, or to perform direct mechanical work (such as to drive a reciprocating pump). This system should be scalable to achieve a desired level of energy output.